ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the nature of the distinction between divine and natural modalities in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Western theology, in Moses Maimonides and in Islamic theology. It suggests that although new twelfth-century modal ideas were included in the standard conceptions of divine possibilities, only a few thinkers realized their theoretical significance. The chapter deals with the Aristotelian theories of Thomas Aquinas and Siger of Brabant which to some extent were influenced by the works of Avicenna and Averroes. It explains the rise of Aristotelianism strengthened traditional habits of thinking about modal matters; much of the mid-thirteenth-century modal thought as a systematization of the themes which were familiar to medieval thinkers since Boethius’ works. The chapter investigates the discussions of the structure and meaning of modal sentences in logical treatises. Aquinas thought that what is coherent or incoherent between a subject and its attributes is determined by the metaphysical forms which are the possible modes of imitating the divine being.
